August Friedrich Schweigger

August Friedrich Schweigger was a German naturalist, born in Erlangen in 1783 and the younger brother of the scientist Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger. He studied medicine, zoology and botany at Erlangen, spent time in Berlin from 1804 and in Paris from 1806, and in 1809 was appointed professor of botany and medicine at the University of Königsberg. In 1815 he was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In herpetology he is best known for his 1812 monograph on turtles, in which he described several new species that are still valid, including the Aldabra giant tortoise and the South American river turtle, and he is the taxonomic authority for the snapping turtle genus Chelydra. He was murdered near Agrigento in Sicily on a research trip in 1821, and the plant genus Schweiggeria honours him.